THE DEAD SOUTH ANNOUNCE SUGAR & JOY, THIRD LP OUT OCTOBER 11, 2019. BULLETS IN THE HOLE: THE DEAD SOUTH ANTE UP WITH NEW VIDEO FOR FIRST SINGLE, “DIAMOND RING,” BOTH OUT TODAY.

/in /by

WATCH HERE

‘CANADA SERVED COLD’ FALL TOUR ON SALE NOW.

 

A rock band without a drummer, a bluegrass band without a fiddler. To the gentlemen of The Dead South, a self-styled 4-piece string band from Regina, Saskatchewan, it’s about how, not what, you play. The Dead South’s combination of cello, mandolin, guitar and banjo has all the hallmarks of a group tuned to bygone times, but with their signature sleight of hand, The Dead South find distinctly ­modern bathos in this old time rigging.

Today, the band announces their third album, Sugar & Joy, coming October 11, 2019 via Six Shooter Records. In “Diamond Ring,” released today, poor William, whoever he is, done got robbed by a would-be groom trying to impress his betrothed. Money doesn’t buy love, but it does buy the ring. “Diamond Ring” comes with a new video directed by frequent collaborators, Regina’s Two Brothers Films.

 

Watch “Diamond Ring,” directed by Two Brothers Films (Regina, SK). 

 

In The Dead South’s world, characters do what they must, even when twisted logic leads them astray. From the opening galloping strum to the lower register cello and backing vocals, the song’s moody mania captures The Dead South’s stock-in-trade, stories of desperation and bad decisions told in fast-paced, brightly-laced bursts. 

Sugar & Joy, The Dead South’s tightest, weirdest and most exciting studio work yet, is their first album written and recorded outside Regina. The album was produced by FAME Studio-trained Jimmy Nutt, a longtime member of the Muscle Shoals music scene whose recent credits include a Grammy for his work on The Steeldrivers. “They have an obvious dedication to what they are doing,” says Nutt. “They really encourage each other, which you don’t see a lot.”

A Bauhaus-via-bluegrass stomp and minor-key mandolin tremolo of “Alabama People,” which finds the universal in the hyper-regional, could not have been written anywhere else but at The Nutthouse. With equal parts empathy and fear, The Dead South have channeled their experience in the fraught, beautiful south into an outsider, observational anthem.

The ongoing question of what is, or is not, bluegrass music, occasionally froths up in The Dead South’s wake as they speed on to the next gig. Cue “Blue Trash,” a song built on a perfectly bluegrassy banjo lick about…not being a bluegrass band. “Blue Trash” is a love letter – not apologia – to the purists, for The Dead South come in peace.

Sugar & Joy will be released on October 11, 2019.

 

TOUR DATES:

SUMMER CRAWL 2019

EAU CLAIRE, WI: Blue Ox Music Festival, June 15

PERRANPORTH, UK: Bands in the Sands, June 21

TUNBRIDGE WELLS, UK: Black Deer Festival, June 22-23

OXFORD, UK: O2 Academy Oxford, June 25  

NORTHAMPTON, UK: Roadmender, June 26

BATH, UK: Komedia Bath, June 27

GLASTONBURY, UK: Glastonbury Festival, June 29-30

CALGARY, AB: Big Rock Brewery, July 6

NORTH PLAINS, OR: Northwest String Summit, July 18- 21 

JACKSONVILLE, OR: Britt Pavilion, July 21  

RENO, NV: Virginia Street Brewhouse, July 22  

MORRISON, CO: Red Rocks Amphitheatre, July 24 w/ Trampled By Turtles

SANTA FE, NM: Santa Fe Brewing Company, July 29

DALLAS, TX: Gas Monkey Live, July 30

TULSA, OK: Cain’s Ballroom, July 31

ST LOUIS, MO: Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, August 1

ST. CHARLES, IA: Hinterland Music Festival, August 2-4

REGINA, SK: Regina Folk Festival, Aug 9-11

 

CANADA SERVED COLD TOUR 

VANCOUVER, BC: Commodore Ballroom, Oct 19 + 20 

EDMONTON, AB: details coming soon.

CALGARY, AB: MacEwan Hall, Oct 24

SASKATOON, SK: TCU Place, Oct 25

WINNIPEG, MB: Burton Cummings Theatre, Oct 26

OTTAWA, ON: TD Place Arena, Oct 29

TORONTO, ON: The Phoenix, Oct 31

MONTREAL, QC: Telus, Nov 1

QUEBEC CITY, QC: Imperial, Nov 2

HALIFAX, NS: The Marquee, Nov 4

*NEW* USA SERVED COLD TOUR (on sale 6/28)

TEMPE, AZ: Marquee Theatre, Nov 24

LAS VEGAS, NV: House of Blues, Nov 25

SAN DIEGO, CA: House of Blues, Nov 26

LOS ANGELES, CA: The Belasco Theatre, Nov 27

SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA: The Fremont Theatre, Nov 29

SAN FRANCISCO, CA: The Fillmore, Dec 1

SACRAMENTO, CA: Ace of Spaces, Dec 2

SEATTLE, WA: Showbox Sodo, Dec 5

SPOKANE, WA: Knitting Factory, Dec 6

GARDEN CITY, ID: Revolution Concert House, Dec 7

CLEVELAND, OH: House of Blues, Jan 5

BUFFALO, NY: Asbury Hall at Babeville, Jan 6

BOSTON, MA: House of Blues, Jan 7

BROOKLYN, NY: Warsaw, Jan 9

PHILADELPHIA, PA: Theatre Of The Living Arts, Jan 10

SILVER SPRING, MD: The Fillmore Silver Spring, Jan 11

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA: Elevation 27, Jan 12

CINCINNATI, OH: Bogarts, Jan 14

LOUISVILLE, KY: Mercury Ballroom, Jan 15

ASHEVILLE, NC: The Orange Peel, Jan 16

RALEIGH, NC: The Ritz, Jan 17

CHARLOTTE, NC: The Underground at the Fillmore Charlotte, Jan 18

CHARLESTON, SC: Music Farm, Jan 20

ORLANDO, FL: House of Blues, Jan 21

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL: Revolution Live, Jan 23

TAMPA, FL: The Orpheum, Jan 24

ATLANTA, GA: Buckhead Theatre, Jan 25

IRELAND AND UK SERVED COLD TOUR 

DUBLIN, IE: Vicar Street, Feb 18

BELFAST, UK: Ulster Hall, Feb 19

GLASGOW, UK: O2 Academy, Feb 21

NEWCASTLE, UK: O2 Academy, Feb 22

MANCHESTER, UK: Academy, Feb 23

BIRMINGHAM, UK: O2 Academy, Feb 25

PORTSMOUTH, UK: Guildhall, Feb 26

LONDON, UK: Brixton Academy, Feb 27

NOTTINGHAM, UK: Rock City, Feb 28

EXETER, UK: Great Hall, Feb 29

RHEOSTATICS ANNOUNCE HERE COME THE WOLVES, FIRST NEW ALBUM IN 15 YEARS

/in /by

OUT 9/6/19 VIA SIX SHOOTER RECORDS.

SEE ALBUM COVER TAKE SHAPE IN TIMELAPSE VIDEO FOR TITLE TRACK.

WATCH / SHARE

Ever bound for ragged glory, Rheostatics occupy a unique place in the Canadian music landscape, pulled together and apart for nearly forty years. Finding grace in the reality of endurance, Rheostatics show us a special type of longevity, through upheaval, personal (and personnel) change, and a basic refusal to play the game in any way, shape or form, stretched over decades. Now, Rheostatics return with Here Come The Wolves, their first new album in 15 years.

On Here Come The Wolves, you’ll find Rheostatics trusting their complicated formula, a signature multiplicity of songwriters, artistic instincts and concerns. Produced by Chris Stringer with mixing contributions by Chris Walla, Michael Phillip Wojewoda and Gus Van Go, over twelve songs Here Come The Wolves unfurls like a cross-section of the band’s cumulative experience, individual and collective.

The title track, a “gear shifting, vocal stacking, wild riffing, sh*t kicking,” testament to finding balance in discord, exemplifies this spirit literally (everybody gets a solo) and figuratively (it’s a complex but catchy tune). This ‘single,’ a funny term for a song of three distinct parts, is a metonymic microdose of stacking wholes: the album, the band in 2019, the Rheostatics’ very way of being since 1980.

Today, Six Shooter Records fires “Here Come The Wolves,” with a Martin Tielli arrow, a thesis on time and its abstractions via a revelatory glimpse into the making of the album art. Come for the behind-the-scenes snoop into Tielli’s painting studio, stay for the free tutorial on the Renaissance technique of egg tempera grassa (“cannot vouch for reptilian egg”). The video, a rollercoaster ride through a painstaking and deliberate process, does with video what Here Come The Wolves does with music: it leaves its trace.

With Tim Vesely’s canola yellow pop melodies, Dave Clark’s galloping beats and Bidini’s rousing stories and frontline provocations, the exquisite triangulation of Hugh Marsh on violin, Kevin Hearn on keys, and Tielli’s ventriloquism on guitar come into high relief. From the opening feathered flutter of “Vancouver,” to the sparkle and shimmer throughout “Music Is The Message,” Here Come The Wolves contains powerful, panoramic beauty. With protest and panache, the yelps and squalls and klangs and riffs on songs like “AC/DC on the Stereo,” and “It’s the Super Controller!” also make space for the strange, the obtuse, the earnest and the wild.

Here Come The Wolves will be released by Six Shooter Records on September 6, 2019.

 

TRACK LISTING
Vancouver
AC/DC on the Stereo
Rearview
Here Come the Wolves
It’s the Super Controller!
Music is the Message
Diamonds on Our Toes
I Wanna Be Your Robot
The Beautiful Night
Goodbye Sister Butterfly
Albatross
Mountains and the Sea

TOUR DATES
CALGARY, AB: Calgary Folk Festival, July 26
EDMONTON, AB: Interstellar Rodeo, July 27

A BRIEF HISTORY
Etobicoke, 1980. Four punk kids string together their first chords on guitars like laces on shoes bound for overhead wires. A marker: I was there.

Toronto, 1993. With three albums up on the wire —Greatest Hits (1987), Melville (1991) and Whale Music (1992) — Rheostatics hold a special place in the city’s heart. The music is fresh, urgent, alive. At an impressive pace, Rheostatics explore ideas that would become the soundtrack to the film Whale Music and the band’s fourth studio album, major label debut, Introducing Happiness (1994).

Somewhere in Ontario, 1996. From the National Gallery of Canada (Music Inspired by The Group of 7) to a national tour of Canada’s legions, bars and concert halls, a newly configured Rheostatics set out with The Tragically Hip, unleashing anthems like “Bad Time To Be Poor” (Blue Hysteria, 1996).

From 2001 to 2067: Rheostatics cross Canada with ten albums over 20 years, searching for new ways to grow. They release Night of the Shooting Stars in 2001. Tight knit and insatiable, the band plays 12 nights in a row in Toronto. They tunnel down into the new sound of 2067 before they fan out, each on their own odyssey.

2007-2016: RIP? Rheostatics say goodbye with a sold out “Good. Gone. Dead.” performance at Massey Hall in 2007. Band vital signs flatline for nearly a decade. Rheostatics reemerge in 2015 to play three nights at the Art Gallery of Ontario, and later make their reunion official with a return to Massey Hall in 2016.

Here Come the Wolves, 2019. After fifteen years, The Rheostatics return as their original 1980 four, Dave Bidini, Dave Clark, Martin Tielli and Tim Vesely, now also with Hugh Marsh and Kevin Hearn.

SIX SHOOTER MANAGEMENT WELCOMES JULY TALK.

/in /by

“Love Lives Here”

July Talk shaping alt rock landscape through art, airwaves and advocacy.

 

Photo by Mitch Brown

 

Six Shooter Management is ecstatic to welcome July Talk to the roster. “We have been following July Talk for years as both friends and fans,” says Six Shooter’s Shauna de Cartier. “We love their music, we align with their social and political views, and we adore them as people.  We are over the moon to be working with this band.”

 

Fresh from a North American tour with Metric, July Talk now readies for their third full-length album via Sleepless Records/Universal Music Canada. “We’re thrilled to be starting a new management relationship with our longtime friends and allies Shauna, Helen and Emily at Six Shooter,” says the band. “We’re grateful to Alex Bonenfant and Nightmare Management for their integral role in our project’s formation and progress, and we look forward to a continued and fruitful relationship with Sleepless Records.”

 

Since 2012, July Talk has risen with purpose and poise. Three sold out nights at Massey Hall to close out 2017 made an undeniable statement about the band’s potency and community. July Talk has also grown as mentors and allies of an urgent and fundamental industry recalibration. From the New Constellations tour and recording project with high school students in Thunder Bay to curatorial partnerships with festivals to creating safe spaces at rock shows, July Talk is working to build community, raise resistance and advance equality.

 

Helmed by Helen Britton, Six Shooter Management’s roster now includes July Talk, Tanya Tagaq, The Dead South, Whitehorse, William Prince, Zaki Ibrahim, Rheostatics, Ensign Broderick and Riit. The management company is defined by the creative excellence of these distinguished artists, each on their own unique paths to success and acclaim.

 

JULY TALK TOUR DATES:

QUEBEC, QC: Festival d’été de Québec, July 9

BALA, ON: The Kee To Bala, Aug 9 + 10 w/ Hollerado

EDMONTON, AB: Sonic Field Day, Hawrelak Park, Sep 7-8

 

ENSIGN BRODERICK PREVIEWS BLOODMYTH, OUT 6/7/19, WITH SWOOPING BALLAD, “SWEPT AWAY.”

/in /by

THE KEY OF X: ENSIGN BRODERICK JOINS SARAH SLEAN AND ERIN COSTELO FOR PIANO-FOCUSED SHOWS IN TORONTO AND NYC. 

“A reclusive, romantic, tear-stained baritone and unabashed opus bringer.” – Globe and Mail

“Broderick makes old-school glam sound urgent, gritty, and absolutely vital.” – Uncut

 

 

A condemnation disguised as a benediction, Ensign Broderick’s BloodMyth speaks out against hate, pernicious nationalism and vainglorious self-destruction through characters that embody these, the very worst, ways of being. The album is an inverse/reverse/perverse excavation of 2018’s BloodCrush, a meditation on frailty and fallibility that edged ever closer to the brink. With BloodMyth, more a finale than a companion to its partner album, Ensign Broderick pushes things over the edge, where concepts of personal and political extremism come to swirling, chaotic conclusions.

“Swept Away,” a 5-minute melodrama, explores the oceanic disorientation of being over one’s head. With a classic backbeat, horns and pedal steel, the song channels late 60s FAME Studios rock, the overall aesthetic somewhere between bedazzled Manuel contrition and glam dandy swagger, the twin pillars of Ensign Broderick’s sound and style. 

Appalachian folk meets California pop in “Our Angel of Morphine,” a sweetly celestial treatment of a truly dark and nasty tale. Ethereal, soft-focus brokenness is also present in “Love Died Here,” an atmospheric opiated half-time reworking of a song from BloodCrush. Pain, of whatever sort, and the treatment thereof is a major theme in the album, in both lyrical and visual form. The vinyl package contains a collage built around a main image of a spinal-fusion operating table, its sleek chrome more Ducati than OR supply.

The inescapable disintegration reaches its apex with “The Telling Part,” the last and oldest song on the album (c. 1970), a tale of alienation and abandonment. Over twelve minutes, anger boils and bubbles over. ‘Tell me about starvation and sustenance,’ it goes, which in its way encapsulates the poisonous imbalance of give and take found at every turn. BloodMyth’s villains – anonymous caricatured embodiments of the deadly sins – trade only in damages.

In contrast to the desert glitter of BloodCrush, BloodMyth’s physical form – a vinyl-first release for Record Store Day Canada (a move true to form for an artist with such a deep connection to music’s physical places and pieces) – unravels in similar fashion. From jarring hi-def patent leather to the scribbles and edits on the lyrics, the vinyl edition echoes the devolution and deconstruction of music and narrative in art.

With six albums out in just over a year, Ensign Broderick’s story and experience of launching his solo career at age 59, has little precedent. Each album conveys a fully realized and distinct dimension of the artist and persona, yet a complete picture of the inner life and creative ambition of the artist is only just starting to take form. “You’re getting a different Ensign Broderick with each project,” says the artist. “The progression from the childlike perspective of Ranger to the totally superficial, fully realized glam of Feast of Panthers, to the very personal depth-plumbing of BloodCrush/BloodMyth is a maturation and a devolution. These are all puzzle pieces.”

Listen to Ensign Broderick in conversation with Danko Jones here. 

 

TOUR DATES:

TORONTO, ON: The Key of X, The Mod Club, June 18 w/ Sarah Slean, Erin Costelo

NEW YORK, NY: The Key of X, Public Arts, June 19 w/ Sarah Slean, Erin Costelo

 

Ensign Broderick’s THE KEY OF X series brings classical, contemporary and experimental artists together to celebrate piano-based composition and performance. 

The inaugural Key of X took place at Winnipeg New Music Festival in 2018 with Ensign Broderick and Jónas Sen (Björk).

POLAR PUNK: CBS 60 MINUTES PROFILES TANYA TAGAQ.

/in /by

FLAGSHIP NEWSMAGAZINE’S PROFILE OF INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED INUK ARTIST AIRS SUNDAY, MAY 5. WATCH A PREVIEW HERE.

“One of the avant-garde’s most dynamic performers.” – Rolling Stone 

“This fiercely charistmatic Inuk singer’s throaty voice demands full attention, whether she’s whispering in her softest register or howling at the sky.” – NY Times 

“The Inuk experimental musician joins landscape, culture and resistance.” – Pitchfork

“The uncompromising Inuit throat singer, composer and author pushes the human voice to surprising places.” – NPR

 

Tanya Tagaq is one of Canada’s most written about, celebrated and original artists. As comfortable on world stages in couture as she is steering a quad over the land in her home of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Tagaq’s complexity, originality, strength, gentleness and humour is not easily captured in word or video. With studio albums, collaborations across classical, indie rock and metal worlds, a Giller Prize long listed debut novel and countless other multi-disciplinary projects in the works, Tagaq’s art is a universe unto itself. Tagaq the person is no less a multitude of experiences, emotions and observation: with a keen mind, an open heart, and a laser-sharp ability to cut through to the quick, Tagaq shows us a way forward.

Over a year in the making, CBS 60 Minutes’ travels to performances at a club in NYC, a theatre in Minneapolis, a festival in Yellowknife and to Tagaq’s home in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, to showcase the artist and human like never before. The profile, which airs on Sunday, May 5, 2019, presents Tagaq as she is, an artist, an activist, a mother, a sister, a daughter.

Tagaq’s music is an utterly unique and urgently compelling improvisational approach to sound creation. As a vocalist, Tagaq is a breath-contortionist, a master at her self-defined, signature craft. A throat singer, a death growler, a harrowing whisperer, a gentle cooer: an artist who can channel sounds from her environment into rhythmic, pounding layers that weave in and out of her collaborators’ instrumental and electronic elements. Tagaq’s albums have included pointed yet winking covers of artists from the Pixies to Nirvana to Iron Maiden, spoken word elements and hip hop guests, metal, art-rock, classical and ambient electronic elements swirling into one “art-metal blizzard” (Rolling Stone). With a long list of accomplishments that include composer, author, painter and beyond, music is the foundation for a career that is rapidly gathering speed, force and prestige. Tagaq is just getting started.

Tagaq’s most recent music project, Toothsayer (released March 2019) is a commission for the UK National Maritime Museum’s permanent “Polar Worlds” exhibit.

 

LISTEN TO TOOTHSAYER here.

Her debut novel, Split Tooth, was recently nominated for Amazon Canada’s First Novel Award and Rakuten Kobo’s Emerging Writer Prize.

Read more about Amazon Canada First Novel Award here.

Read more about Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize here.

THE DEAD SOUTH ANNOUNCE “CANADA SERVED COLD” FALL TOUR DATES. Tickets on sale May 3, 2019.

/in /by

How will The Dead South top­ their Glastonbury debut this summer? By becoming the first bluegrass band to headline London’s Brixton Academy, Feb 27, 2020. 

The Dead South tease third album in new Sheffield, Alabama-filmed trailer. 

The wait for The Dead South’s third full-length album is nearly over. Today, the band announces extensive SERVED COLD tour dates in Canada, Ireland and the UK along with a clip that hints at the direction of the forthcoming album, due this fall via Six Shooter Records.

The Canadian leg of the SERVED COLD tour, a true cross-Canada jaunt, will take the band from Vancouver to Halifax. USA dates will be announced in coming months. Tickets for shows announced today will be on sale May 3, 2019, with the exception of Edmonton (on sale May 10). Pre-sale bundles to all shows will be available as of May 1, 2019 here.

The Dead South are poised to become one of Canada’s most successful independent musical exports. For real. While the band flies under the radar of industry and media, who have some catching up to do, they have built a worldwide fan base show by show. With their first new album since 2016 on the horizon, The Dead South will bring their best work yet to the world.

 

TOUR DATES:

SUMMER CRAWL 2019

EAU CLAIRE, WI: Blue Ox Music Festival, June 15

PERRANPORTH, UK: Bands in the Sands, June 21

TUNBRIDGE WELLS, UK: Black Deer Festival, June 22-23

OXFORD, UK: O2 Academy Oxford, June 25  

NORTHAMPTON, UK: Roadmender, June 26

BATH, UK: Komedia Bath, June 27

GLASTONBURY, UK: Glastonbury Festival, June 29-30

CALGARY, AB: Big Rock Brewery, July 6

NORTH PLAINS, OR: Northwest String Summit, July 18- 21 

JACKSONVILLE, OR: Britt Pavilion, July 21  

RENO, NV: Virginia Street Brewhouse, July 22  

MORRISON, CO: Red Rocks Amphitheatre, July 24 w/ Trampled By Turtles

SANTA FE, NM: Santa Fe Brewing Company, July 29

DALLAS, TX: Gas Monkey Live, July 30

TULSA, OK: Cain’s Ballroom, July 31

ST LOUIS, MO: Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, August 1

ST. CHARLES, IA: Hinterland Music Festival, August 2-4

REGINA, SK: Regina Folk Festival, Aug 9-11

*NEW* CANADA SERVED COLD TOUR 2019 (tickets on sale May 3)

VANCOUVER, BC: Commodore Ballroom, Oct 19 

EDMONTON, AB: details coming soon.

CALGARY, AB: MacEwan Hall, Oct 24

SASKATOON, SK: TCU Place, Oct 25

WINNIPEG, MB: Burton Cummings Theatre, Oct 26

OTTAWA, ON: TD Place Arena, Oct 29

TORONTO, ON: The Phoenix, Oct 31

MONTREAL, QC: Telus, Nov 1

QUEBEC CITY, QC: Imperial, Nov 2

HALIFAX, NS: The Marquee, Nov 4

*NEW* IRELAND AND UK SERVED COLD TOUR 2020 (tickets on sale May 3)

DUBLIN, IE: Vicar Street, Feb 18

BELFAST, UK: Ulster Hall, Feb 19

GLASGOW, UK: O2 Academy, Feb 21

NEWCASTLE, UK: O2 Academy, Feb 22

MANCHESTER, UK: Academy, Feb 23

BIRMINGHAM, UK: O2 Academy, Feb 25

PORTSMOUTH, UK: Guildhall, Feb 26

LONDON, UK: Brixton Academy, Feb 27

NOTTINGHAM, UK: Rock City, Feb 28

EXETER, UK: Great Hall, Feb 29

THERE’S NO BURNING WITHOUT FIRE. STRIKE ME DOWN, STRIKE ME DOWN.

/in /by

In advance of Whitehorse Orchestrated with the Toronto Symphony on June 15th, Whitehorse are back with a surprise single from their JUNO nominated album, Panther In The Dollhouse.

THE NEW VOICES AWARD RETURNS FOR YEAR 2.

/in /by

Six Shooter Records, Weber Shandwick and West End Phoenix present the second edition of the New Voices Scholarship for young music writers. Any individual 18 and under living in Toronto is encouraged to submit a short personal essay (no more than 400 words) on the question:

“What song lyric most closely mirrors your life, and why?”

Five winners will receive $100 each and will have their story published in an issue of the West End Phoenix community newspaper.

** Deadline is 5pm EST on May 22, 2019. **

All entrants are invited to May 27 event at Melody Bar, Gladstone Hotel 5-7 pm for winners announcement + open mic reading.

Submit your entry here.

THE SIXTH SENSE OF MEMORY: RHEOSTATICS’ DOUBLE LIVE NOW STREAMING.

/in /by

29 Tracks recorded on tour with The Tragically Hip, at clubs, dive bars and theatres across Canada, available digitally for the first time since its 1997 release.

Listen here.

 

Welcome to our live album. As we recorded it – that is, as we dragged two digital tape machines and a mixing board across the country and unboxed them nightly, often in haste and with minutes to spare before hitting the stage – we had no idea that, upon reflection, this would turn out to be a defining recording for us. Yet it is. All of your favourites were considered for this record (please, no letters lamenting the exclusion of “The World is Fluffly” or “Hallowe’en Eyes”) and we tried to slip in a few lost gems for good measure. Everything was recorded on our last Canadian tour with hits added from our arena stint opening for The Tragically Hip. We hope that this platter sounds like the road, which, for us, represents more good than bad. In the 27 songs included here, you can feel all of those miles rolled up in there, those timeless purple evenings spent on the highways of Canada, driving through wilding snowstorms and blinding sunsets, wheeling from town to town, club to club, hall to hall, colliding paths with strangers, and unapologetically tapping into the astonishing goodwill of Canadian music lovers coast-to-coast-to-coast who opened their doors to us and saved our collective bacon on more than one occasion. This band would be dead were it not for them.

 

These evergreen words live in the CD booklet of Rheostatics’ Double Live, released in 1997. With Martin Tielli’s handpainted triple-mapled double-neck guitar on the cover, Double Live became one of the band’s bestselling albums, a document of life on tour with The Hip, and life well outside the orbit of the arena machine, in clubs and wherever else the Rheos clawed and conjured their shows. Live Between Us is the story of a national headliner in peak form; Double Live is the weirder, jagged, chasmic dog-eared story of a band that wouldn’t fit that role, yet endure regardless, on their own stubborn terms and in their own rapturous way.

 

With rarities and oddities including the nervous seasick cover of Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” improvised material not found on any other Rheos’ albums and all the hits from the band’s cabinet of curiosities, Double Live is a deep dive into a time, group and traveling scene.

 

Double Live, with all its glorious idiosyncrasies, is now available on streaming platforms worldwide via Six Shooter Records.

MEET RIIT: NEW ARCTIC ELECTROPOP ARTIST NOW SIGNED TO SIX SHOOTER RECORDS.

/in /by

LISTEN TO NEW SONG QAUMAJUAPIK HERE.

“A sound that builds like a zipper being pulled upward into the sky.” – FASHION

 

Photo credit to Jen Squires

 

From the land that never melts comes a sound that radiates life, youth and promise. Riit, from majestic Panniqtuuq, Nunavut, Canada, is a new artist making space for herself in the electropop world with deep rhythmic throat singing layered over gemological synth cuts and sticky, staticky electronic textures. With field recordings with sounds of the north, from brassy ravens circling overhead to the silvery glint of knife sharpening, Riit’s music emerges from very distinct circumstances of place, language and experience.

 

With throat singing, Riit performs a unique and extraordinary art form and creates a sound all her own. Inuttitut lyrics weave in and out of the deep rumbling rhythmic strata of breath, each element in constant interplay with the other, collapsing the distance between the unknown and the familiar. Riit sings about the clarity of forgiveness, the imprint of the past on the present, and personal disconnection. Most of the songs are about family, life and love, and explore unimaginably heavy topics such as intergenerational trauma, residential schools, sexual abuse and isolation.

 

The monoamine-fueled flush of “Qaumajuapik,” the first song shared from Riit’s debut full-length album, expresses how intense attraction messes with your sense of time, where a single blink contains a universe. Heart races, clock stops. Produced by Graham Walsh (Holy Fuck), the song sweeps in on a buzzy gust before the Tangerine Dream-esque modulations kick in. Teardrop bleeps fall over Riit’s clear voice like a sunshower. The song title means ‘you are shining.’

 

On the strength of a 3-song EP released in 2017 by Aakuluk Music, Nunavut’s first record label, Riit received nominations for Best Radio Single and Indigenous Artist of the Year. As the host of a groundbreaking Inuttitut-language children’s show, Anaana’s Tent, and soon-to-be recipient of an Emerging Talent Award of Excellence for her broadcast work, at age 23 Riit is one of the faces of a Nunavut youth movement, a group of remarkable, driven and increasingly high-profile individuals who are making mainstream waves through art. For an artist who has performed only a handful of shows, a performance in London for The Duke and Duchess of Sussex (Harry & Meghan) and a sold out show in Paris are highlights of a young career.

With “Qaumajuapik,” Riit also makes official the news of her signing to Toronto-based indie label Six Shooter Records.

RIYL: Rosalia, Miya Folick, Troye Sivan

 

INTERSTELLAR RODEO’S 2019 LINEUP IS HERE. QUEENS AND KINGS OF ART ROCK, SOUL POP, POETRY, COUNTRY SWING AND SWAGGERING ROCK TO CONVENE AT HAWRELAK PARK, JULY 26-28, 2019.

/in /by

 

Trip the light iconoclastic, Interstellar Rodeo’s 2019 lineup brings dazzlingly creative forces together from July 26-28, 2019. For its eighth edition, Interstellar Rodeo offers a lineup for the musically adventurous and socially engaged. This year, and as annually expected, Interstellar Rodeo’s lineup is a sonically serpentine, genre gambolling convergence of excellence and eclecticism. Fittingly, Toronto’s Weaves, purveyors of sideways-slanted guitar pop, will be the first band to hit the stage on Friday, July 26.

 

 

At the top of the 2019 lineup sit Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, prime movers of horn stacked vintage rock with an R&B backbone, the intimate confessional-turned-arena sized indie of Sharon Van Etten, who will arrive with one of the most emphatically praised albums released in 2019, and the Grammy-nominated Aloe Blacc, back for his second Interstellar Rodeo appearance.

 

Interstellar Rodeo always takes pride in offering Edmonton music lovers the occasion to see an artist for the first time. This year the festival welcomes Seattle’s Perfume Genius, author of swirling, soaring, strutting and subversive piano pop, for his Alberta debut. Iconic percussionist and pioneering performer Sheila E., a queen among royals, will also make her Edmonton debut. And, from Soulsville USA, Southern Avenue, a new band that embodies the soul, blues and gospel history of their home city of Memphis (and Stax Records labelmates of Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats), will make their first trip to Canada.

 

This year, Interstellar Rodeo expands the idea of songwriter with artists who blend spokenword/poetry, dance, theatre and other art forms into their music to explore the African diaspora in thought and sound. “Radical linguist” Saul Williams, known as a rapper/poet/actor/writer and beyond, is an explosive and complex performer. Toronto’s Zaki Ibrahim, a critically acclaimed “Retro-Afrofuturist,” blends 70s R&B with electronic textures, synths and South African house beats. Multi-platinum selling global traveler K’NAAN also pushes away the walls between genre and form with ‘unapologetic rhymes’ and ‘melodic chops’ in songs about consciousness, politics and personal experience.

 

Sunday’s lineup doubles up on duos with the psychic symmetry of cosmic pop in dark sparkle doppelgangers Lucius, frequent band members of Roger Waters, and Six Shooter’s own Whitehorse, four-time JUNO nominees who pack a one-two punch of mesmerizing guitars and harmonies. This will be Whitehorse’s third appearance at the festival, with a pop noir album, the second instalment of The Northern South and a holiday album released since their last visit in 2016.

 

While there’s no sonic overlap between Texas swing giants Asleep At The Wheel and Toronto’s Rheostatics, there is common ground in longevity. The Wheel’s near 50-year run has seen 10 Grammy Awards and 20 albums; art rock hydra Rheostatics have created nearly 40 years of enigmatic iconography. Legends in their own rights, venerable by any measure, Interstellar Rodeo is thrilled to bring these esteemed groups to Hawrelak Park.

 

Interstellar Rodeo takes celebrating local talent as seriously as hosting international debuts. This year, pan-provincial supergroup Major Love, which includes Edmonton’s Colleen Brown, will open the day on Saturday, July 27.

 

INTERSTELLAR RODEO 2019

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
Sharon Van Etten • Aloe Blacc
Perfume Genius • K’NAAN • Rheostatics
Whitehorse • Sheila E. • Lucius
Asleep at the Wheel • Saul Williams • Weaves
Zaki Ibrahim  • Major Love • Southern Avenue

 For daily lineups, please visit interstellarrodeo.com.

Pre-sale tickets available Thursday, March 28 at 10am MT. Weekend passes on sale to the public at 10am MT on Friday, March 29. Tickets available at interstellarodeo.com and at Blackbyrd Myoozik.

 

Interstellar Rodeo’s 2019 lineup was announced today at 11am MT from the ATB Branch for Arts & Culture by festival founder Shauna de Cartier, with a live performance by Colleen Brown.

SIX SHOOTER RECORDS PRESIDENT SHAUNA DE CARTIER TO RECEIVE CIMA’s 2019 ENTREPRENEUR AWARD.

/in /by

ALLISON OUTHIT, SIX SHOOTER’S NEW VP INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, TO RECEIVE BRIAN CHATER INDUSTRY AWARD.

 

 

CIMA’s announcement of its 2019 Award Recipients is big news for Six Shooter Records. Six Shooter President, the inimitable Shauna de Cartier, will receive this year’s Entrepreneur Award in recognition of the success, longevity and vision of the label and its related companies, which include Six Shooter Management, Girl On A Horse (publishing) and Interstellar Rodeo. For nineteen years, de Cartier has steered, constructed and willed Six Shooter Records into a dynamic hub of art, sound and ideas; a community of creative musical minds connected by entrepreneurial spirit and expertise. The Six Shooter narrative is about ingenuity, determination and pride, in the big picture and in the details.

 

Further cause for major celebration is the news that Allison Outhit will receive the 2019 Brian Chater Industry Award. Prior to her recent arrival at Six Shooter Records as VP International Business Development, Outhit held positions as VP Operations of FACTOR and Head of Business Affairs at Outside Music. This award recognizes decades of dedicated, inspired contributions to artists and organizations alike. Of the recognition, Outhit says: “To be honoured with this award for a career’s worth of agitation for artists generally, but especially for systemically disadvantaged artists and entrepreneurs, is so gratifying. Not to mention motivating!”

 

Join us in honouring these leaders, colleagues and friends at CIMA’s Celebration & Awards Gala on Monday, June 10. Congratulations to all of this year’s excellent recipients and nominees. 

Read more about the 2019 CIMA Gala Winners & Nominees here.

 

About Shauna de Cartier 

Nineteen years ago, Shauna de Cartier founded Six Shooter Records as a one-woman operation. Originally from Edmonton, de Cartier had moved east with artist management experience, corporate and independent arts marketing savvy and an MBA from the University of Alberta. With one artist – Luke Doucet – signed to the new label, de Cartier embarked on a gutsy, gritty course to establishing Six Shooter Records an artist-first, longevity-minded independent label in her new home of Toronto.

 

Now, in 2019, the Six Shooter world includes a unique, profitable and artistically exemplary record label, a growing publishing company, a booming artist management company, and a gem of a festival, Edmonton’s Interstellar Rodeo. All four business components work together to make Six Shooter a distinctive and dynamic force in the music industry. Six Shooter’s community of inimitable musical minds is connected, grounded and supported by de Cartier’s entrepreneurial spirit and expertise, generosity, love and integrity.

 

Six Shooter’s catalogue now includes more than one hundred albums united by an appreciation for the craft of songwriting. Currently, the diverse, politically engaged, and internationally renowned roster includes Whitehorse, Tanya Tagaq, The Dead South, Amelia Curran, Whitney Rose, The Wet Secrets, Ensign Broderick, The Rheostatics, Riit and more.

 

As a member of the music industry, de Cartier is a tireless advocate for artists, independent businesses and fair dealings. De Cartier continues to serve on the board of CIMA, which she chaired for four years, has recently rejoined the Radio Starmaker board, where she previously served a six year run, and also served a term as an elected Board Member of the Americana Music Association, based in Nashville. De Cartier is committed to creating professional opportunities for young industry members – specifically women – and fostering a strong network of like-minded individuals in the industry at large.

 

About Allison Outhit 

 

Born in Halifax, Outhit began her career as a production assistant with UK concert giant Harvey Goldsmith. Over the next 10 years, Allison rounded all the corners at the intersection of Art and Commerce, with stints in community radio, journalism, music and video production, and arts administration in London, Montreal, Halifax and Toronto, while also completing a law degree.

 

After touring as lead guitarist/vocalist/songwriter with several bands, releasing multiple albums and inking a co-publishing deal with Warner/Chappell Music, Allison went to work in film and television production, amassing over 70 hours of production credits and one Gemini nomination. In 2006, she left film production to join Toronto-based indie label/manager/distributor Outside Music as Head of Business Affairs.

 

In February 2011, Outhit joined the Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings (FACTOR) as its Vice President of Operations. At FACTOR, Allison was a key imagineer of program and operational changes that redesigned and reinvigorated Canada’s largest and most impactful music funding organization.

 

Allison is a lifelong fighter for social justice. She is proud to have been mentored in community legal advocacy by the late African-Nova Scotian activist Rocky Jones, and recently completed the Centennial Certificate in Leadership and Inclusion.

 

The proud recipient of the Halifax Pop Explosion’s 2014 Scene Builder Award, Outhit’s life in the musical trenches, along with her depth of entertainment business experience and legal knowledge, give her a skill set uniquely primed to help artists keep on keeping on.